I’m sorry guys, I’m done. To all my readers and followers, thanks for your support throughout all this time.

I’d especially like to thank my family and friends for being so loving and supportive… but this is it, I’m done. I would also like to retract my previous statements about Hollywood originality.

Thanks friends… and farewell!

(Disclaimer: I’m not actually quitting, this was just my attempt to voice my utter disdain for this move by Disney, if it wasn’t painfully obvious.)

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.
jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com
I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.
Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

You can also add me on Twitter!

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

This was quite possibly the first song on my writing playlist. I don’t remember for sure, but it’s been on there since before I can remember… Skip ahead to 4:20.

This is a destiny piece and it is absolutely fantastic. There’s a reason it’s played right as Simba steps onto Pride Rock for the first time as king. I play this when my hero first ‘picks up the sword’ and begins his journey, or after the final struggle is over and the heroes claim victory.

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.
jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com
I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.
Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

I can hear the groans from here. Yes you all knew that I was going to be talking about this shit-storm of a movie in more detail at some point and in all honest, I’ve done my best to avoid it.

However, given that it.s a take on one of the all-time great fantasy stories, it’s produced by… pretty much the main company that has been making the majority of fantasy movies for almost a century now… wow, it seemed like it was almost inevitable.

Look, I’m going to level with everyone here, I do not like this movie. Yes, I’m a small minority. I acknowledge that the movie visuals ate spectacular, the songs are for the most part entertaining… for the most part…

(UGH!)

I will give them credit for adding Scandinavian chanting in the opening credits, even if it does make you feel like you’re watch a much better movie. (Guess which one!)

My issue with this movie comes from the story, which like most Disney stories, is a bastardization of the original. Normally I give poetic license a pass, but on Hans Christian Anderson… I do not! I love the original Little Mermaid and thus don’t like that movie either, for pretty much the same reasons.

Anyway, onto the meat and potatoes of what I’m going to be talking about here. I want to talk about the main song that this movie is known for, Let it Go. Like so many others, I heard this song when the movie was released… mostly because it was hard to avoid, I mean everybody and their grandmother was doing a version of it… everybody…

Heck, there’s even a heavy metal version of it:

… Kay…

Heck, even the Nostalgia Critic tackled the insanity behind it:

(Though… do I really need to point out the irony of contributing to the madness in order to commentate on it? No? Okay, just checking…)

All right, so now you’ve gone through all the Let it Go videos on the internet, its 10 years later… and you’re still here reading this post… well, thanks! So what’s my take on it?

Well honestly, I think it would have been a better villain song. Allow me to put this into context. I first heard the song long before my kids begged me to take them to see it… or maybe it was my wife saying ‘Jim, we’re taking them to see this, end of discussion.’ Doesn’t matter… when I first heard the song, it starts out as a rather sad song and you can even pick up what’s going on even if you haven’t seen the movie. This young woman has been rejected by society and driven into the wilderness because they fear what she can do.

Then as the song progresses, we see her creating more and more. She builds herself a castle, creates live snow people, ice bridges, etc. Then you get lyrics like ‘It’s time to see what I can do.’ Okay, that could be interpreted as her preparing to turn her powers on the people who rejected her.

When I first heard this, to me, it was a song showing the transformation of a character from an innocent into a villain who was throwing caution to the wind after her worst fears had been realized. If you take a look at it, you get all the villain themes in check;
The rise to power, with her creating her fortress.
Testing her limits and breaking through.
Storm alterations.
The line ‘The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway.”

Everything about this just completely reminded me of the song from Wicked, Defying Gravity. This song is exactly what I’m talking about. It’s a villain transformation song. See if you can pick out the similarities:

Wait a minute, Elphaba wasn’t a bad guy!!

No, that’s true, she wasn’t bad. However, she willingly accepted her role as the villain in this story, given that the good guys weren’t exactly the moral right here. It was at this point that she knowingly became The Wicked Witch of the West.

Had it been a similar situation in Frozen, or even just a tragic villain transformation, that would have been a lot more powerful than what we got. When I first heard this, knowing the original story, I first thought, ‘Yes, this is the origin of the Snow Queen.”

Well… not so much…

Anyway, those are just my thoughts on it. Let me know what you think in the comments:

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.
jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com
I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.
Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

You can also add me on Twitter!

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

Okay… I’m going to try to put a stop to this, because my focus on movie writing lately has taken my blog WAY off topic, almost to the point of Hollywood Advocacy, and it needs to stop. So hopefully this will be the end of it. However, there were some things that I needed to get off of my chest about the effects of political correctness, ‘safe writing’, etc. and movies are perhaps the more glaring examples… thankfully!

Anyway, here goes. I covered this a little in my topic ‘Why do we cater to Political Correctness in our Writing?‘ but I wanted to delve into this a little more. Think about it. Look at the movies and books that are overly politically correct, that cater to Social Justice demographics, and are extremely preachy in their message. Name one that really did all that well… Can you? Maybe I don’t see enough movies or read enough, because I can’t.

Now, let’s go and take a look at movies that weren’t ‘safe’ and weren’t necessary politically correct, and trusted their audiences to make their own determination…

Well, that’s easy for me. Disney’s the Hunchback of Notre Dame tops the kid’s movies list. Think about it, it’s dark, it deals with Christianity and the Christian God… which is something we don’t usually see in visual media much any more. Think about it, the main characters came under the protection of the church, and it’s even because a priest steps in that the Hunchback even survives!
The movie goes even further, prejudice against gypsies, hypocritical blind faith, lust and the dark side of desire, murder, and even genocide are prevalent themes of the movie. It is edgy, interesting, and an absolutely beautiful film which still remains very high on my favorite movies list.

When this movie came out, was it panned by critics? Did people flock to social justice for protection? Hell no, the movie was a critical success and became the 5th highest grossing film of 1996. The audiences absolutely loved it! Heck, some even went so far as to say that the movie didn’t go far enough with the dark themes that are in the original source material.

Another good example? Well this one is a little more obscure, but Nuremberg, starring Alec Baldwin is a little-known gem that can be watched on Youtube. Too often today, we see historical bad guys needlessly over-vilified in order to drive the point home that they’re the bad guys. (Japanese pilots firing on the Hospital in ‘Pearl Harbor,’ which didn’t actually happen, is a perfect example of this). Nuremberg was the story of the trials surrounding the top Nazi’s that survived the war, and focused greatly on Hermann Goering. I’ve seen many movies that deal with this subject, and one thing that makes this movie different from so many of the others… is that not only do they humanize Goering, but they actually make him likable. Seriously, if you didn’t have the historical context of what he and the Nazi Party of WW2 were responsible for, you might actually find yourself hoping that this character is found innocent.
To be clear, they don’t do this to try to deny the Holocaust or try to downplay how evil this people were, far from it. The movie shows them, in my opinion, as they were. When I think of Nazis, I don’t think of vicious killers covered in blood running around like barbarians… well… okay I don’t think of the top Nazi officials and High-Ranking officers that way. No, I think of them as charming, soft-spoken, deceptively polite, manipulative, and even on some level, even likable. I know that sounds awful, and it is, but think about it… how did the Nazis come to power? Did they seize control? Did they attack the Reich in a violent coup and take control of the government? No, they tried that and failed. They actually took over almost completely legally through voting and politics. You cannot accomplish this by being a rude, hard-lining barbarian. You have to suave, you have to be likable, and you have to be able to be able to bring people over to your side. That is how this movie portrays them. It let’s you see things from their perspective, it let’s you develop a relationship with these characters because it trusts its audiences to remember that, even though Goering can suck you in with his charm, he was still an evil, despicable, man who was responsible for the deaths of literally millions of innocent people.

So the question then is… why do safe movies that cater to the Social Justice crowd fail, often overly politically correct, fail so miserably? Honestly… It’s because they don’t respect their audience! They don’t trust their audience to be able to handle controversial subjects and fear the threat of backlash. It’s sad, but that’s how it goes. People go to the movies for an escape, they want to be drawn in to fantasy worlds and allowed to use their minds to a certain extent while following the story. Unfortunately, too often, that’s not what we get…

Think about it… Do you think Disney would put out a movie like ‘Bambi’ today? Would they really risk showing the scene that launched a thousand tears with Bambi’s Mom getting killed? Well… maybe, but I somehow doubt it. That was a different time. At that point, the studios trusted their audiences. They trusted children to be able to handle things like that and respected them to be able to process it instead of coddling them like ‘pweshous widdle snowfwakes,’ but what’s more, they trusted us parents to be able to raise our kids and put everything into context so that they know, ‘Okay yes, it’s terrible, it’s awful, but that’s life. Yes it’s bad, but it’s something that happens.’ instead of sending them angry letters saying ‘Don’t show our kids bad stuff, we don’t actually want to have to parent them!’
Today? If you need proof that studios like Disney don’t trust their audience to put things into context, look at ‘Song of the South.’
I own one of the few legal VHS copies that pop up from Europe on Ebay every now and again and I can honestly say that the movie is harmless. It’s a pleasant little story, dealing with mythos and the stories passed down by freed slaves in the south. Again, it doesn’t hold back. It speaks of race relations and shows the difference in living conditions and status of the different races during The Reconstruction Era… and Disney refuses to release it. Why? Because they view it to be racially insensitive and are concerned about backlash. The problem here? YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO RACIALLY SENSITIVE WHEN YOU’RE DOING A PERIOD PIECE!! If you’re going to do a movie about the Reconstructionist South, you’re going to be showing racism. You’re going to be showing black poverty and the different in living conditions. You’re going to show racial epithets… and you know what? Even in a kids movie, you shouldn’t be ashamed of that! Let us show the movie to our kids and put everything into context, TRUST US TO DO THIS!

As for the controversy surrounding this movie and the fear of backlash? What backlash? The movie received mixed reviews and the only complaint of racism came from Walter Francis White, the executive secretary of the NAACP:

“The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People recognizes in “Song of the South” remarkable artistic merit in the music and in the combination of living actors and the cartoon technique. It regrets, however, that in an effort neither to offend audiences in the north or south, the production helps to perpetuate a dangerously glorified picture of slavery. Making use of the beautiful Uncle Remus folklore, “Song of the South” unfortunately gives the impression of an idyllic master-slave relationship which is a distortion of the facts.”

Okay, now my own opinions of the continued relevancy of the NAACP aside, White later admitted that he’d never even seen the damn movie! So there goes the backlash. One complaint from an ill-informed individual, who wound up making himself look like a fool.

Did Gone with the Wind face the same criticism? Did it fail? No, it’s a time-honored classic? Okay then.

Moving on…

The other reason these things fail is because people don’t like being preached to. We don’t like being told what to think and how to do things. We read stories and go to the movies to have fun and get a little vacation from reality. I cite an example that happened to me a few years ago…

When District 9 came out in theaters, it was advertised as Sci-Fi movie, that was on par with Star Wars. The trailers certainly backed this up and the marketing was great, so I went to see it… The result was a grotesque movie that was essentially a metaphorical docudrama of Apartheid. I was furious. I tried to give the movie a chance, but couldn’t. It was horribly written, unbelievable, and completely unforgivable. I marched out half way through the movie and demanded my money back. The manager came out and talked to me, trying to explain away why he can’t give me my money back. I told him that the movie was falsely advertised as a science fiction movie and there was no mention of a political documentary and I wanted my money back. In the end, they gave it to me… mostly I think to shut me up.

This is what I’m talking about… if you wanted to make the movie as a political metaphor, fine, great, TELL US! Don’t trick us and then preach at us. People don’t like that. The movie had a good premise, but unfortunately went to a director who is known for his one-note stories that deal strictly with class warfare and apartheid. It shows you one side of everything and does not give the audience a chance to make any decision for themselves. No, you’re going to sympathize with the Aliens without any thought to ‘How did we get here, why are we at this point?’
No, we’re given a narrative story, told how to feel, and given no opportunity to decide anything for ourselves.

Sadly, things like this have been happening for a while now… so why am I so vehement about it? Well because when we don’t let the younger generation deal with Bambi’s death, when we aren’t respected enough to be able to take care of our families and think for ourselves … that’s when the thought police and the disrespectful coddling become relevant and even more so PREVALENT in our society… I don’t even want to think about what the end result will be when people who have been treated this way, or those who have been raised this way, attempt to stand on their own two feet against a cruel world when they’ve never been given the chance to even grow strong legs.

So what do you think, readers? Am I right, am I wrong, am I misguided? Let me know what you think, below…

Thanks!

(P.S. You may notice that I didn’t touch on the censorship of Mark Twain’s writing… well honestly, that’s because that is a separate issue all together, yes it touches on the points I made about people not being able to handle the terse language, but that’s dealing with more of a 1st Amendment issue and really I could write a full blog piece about that alone.)

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com
I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.
Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

This is going to contrast my normal formula of “Good Villain = Good Story.” It simply doesn’t add up here! I know a lot of people hate this character, but I think that has more to do with the story he’s apart of instead of the character himself.
So let’s talk about Davy Jones. I know, as bad as the movie that introduced him was, Davy Jones wasn’t really a bad character, not at all…

Maybe it’s just me and my personal bias of being drawn to the tragic villains. Part of the reason this movie didn’t do so well (aside from Jack and Barbosa being more side characters than stars) was the shallowness of each character. The heroes and lovers were exactly the heroes and lovers you’d expect from a Disney princess flick. The East India baddies were profit drive, no real dimension there… and the rest were just present for their stereotypical antics. It was a bland movie with no real surprises, and the plot suffered for it. No surprises… save one…

Davy Jones, despite the hate, is one of the most well-done tortured soul villains I’ve ever seen. Had this movie been better, Davy Jones might have been as legendary a villain as Darth Vader himself, but such was not to be. You first meet Davy Jones when he arrives to recruit a group of shipwrecked sailors to his cause and then tries to collect his debt from Jack Sparrow. Though it is never really mentioned in the movie, it does appear that Davy Jones was made out to be some sort of combination of the Grim Reaper and the Devil himself. Both roles, he plays well. He was easily hate-able and we all did so.

But then the movie takes a surprise twist. The first scene we see him on his own ship, in private, we hear his dark organ playing, and see Jones in anguish to the point of physical pain. It’s as though playing the song from his music box is the only way to relieve it, even though doing so breaks him down. That’s when you realize the true madness behind this character. The movie does an incredible job of really making you feel his pain and see what he’s going through without uttering a single word. I remember when I saw this movie in theaters, my throat got tight and my eyes began to water at this scene. At this point you already know his tragic story about how he was scorned by a cruel lover, but you really don’t understand the extent of the damage done until you see him here:

Even his theme music is shockingly painful. Listen to it play on the organ. The song sounds painful, but at the same time there is an almost comforting element to it. It is almost as though his former love wrote it to drive him to further insanity, but then calm him down and mellow him at the same time to keep him going and prolong his torture. I like to think that she wrote this for him because it’s just further proof of how cruel she was.

This certainly isn’t the first time Disney has done something like this. They did the same exact thing in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Seriously, watch the organ scene, you can see the demented evil, but at the same time, you can see that under the stoic, angry, and harsh exterior, a shred of his former humanity still exists. Ironically it is this one last shred of his former self that pushes him even further into madness. It is a scene that is done extremely well both times Disney employs it.

Perhaps the biggest bit of irony throughout the entire Pirates series that he is a part of, he is perhaps the only true innocent. I know, I know, he sank ships, murdered people, and was incredibly cruel to anyone he came across… but look at how he got there. Throughout his entire story, he was used and abused. First tasked to ferry souls for 10 years… 10 years he worked just to spend one day with the one he loved, only for her not to show up. As if that wasn’t bad enough, now you have the rest of the cast looking to either kill him, or use him as a puppet to carry out their whims. He is given no peace, no chance at redemption, and is forever locked in as a slave to his surroundings. Truly, there can be no more tragic a character. He even says to Jack Sparrow ‘My Freedom was forfeit long ago!’

My only criticism of this character is that they made him a little too awkward, which takes on a comical view that you see in the third movie, which makes him hard to take seriously. Ironically as he became a less dynamic character, the other characters became less stale and At World’s End turned out to be an improvement. I only wonder at what cost.
But I’m not really talking about his evolution in the third movie, I am more referring to his character from the second one, he was, and continues to be the only reason I still give Dead Man’s Chest decent markings and rate it as at least watchable.

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com
I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.
Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

So… my wife rented this last night and then fell asleep. So I continued watching it alone. I don’t usually do movie reviews, but since this is a fairly recent fantasy film that has gotten a lot of praise… and I mean a LOT, I thought I’d give my take on it.

I tend to shy away from remakes, which let’s face it, that’s what this is. When a studio makes a second version of a movie they’ve already made, its a remake, plain and simple. I don’t care if it’s a different style or medium, it’s a remake.

That being said, I’ve recently revised that policy after seeing Angelina Jolie’s performance as Maleficent. When I first heard about this movie and listened to Jolie sing ‘Once Upon a Dream,’ I rolled my eyes. Maleficent is the best of the Disney villains and no way could Jolie do her credit. Having Jolie stand in for Eleanor Audley could NOT go well. I’m happy to say that I was 100% wrong. Jolie could not replace Audley’s dignified voice and performance, but she shouldn’t be expected to. This was a different take a on a time-honored character that told a story from her perspective. It was done incredibly well and I was so pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it, that I’ve added this movie to my collection. (Just cover your ears during the end credits).

Back on topic. So I spent last night watching this movie. What were my initial impressions? Well… it was a beautiful looking movie. The sets were breath-taking and clearly someone spent a lot of time on them, the outfits were beautiful and appropriate and the cast… I think that would be my biggest compliment to the movie. This was a cast where I didn’t recognize a single person. Making this a cast of fresh faces, which you don’t see much in Hollywood anymore. Usually there is at least one big name to give a movie some street cred.

The soundtrack was beautifully done, both the singing parts and the instrumentals. I especially liked the homages to the original animated film that were passively added in. Movies often try to make a big deal out of things like that to show it’s attachment. This movie seemed like it was trying really hard to keep itself separate… did it do that successfully? Well, we’ll get to that.

So with all that said, did I enjoy this movie? Actually, yes, but not as much as you might think. As I said, it was a beautiful looking movie with great costumes and scenery, but other than that… it really didn’t bring anything new to the table. For all it’s efforts, it really didn’t break away from the classic animated film . It did explain a few plot points, like what happened to Cinderella’s real family, and why she put up with everything from her step sisters, but other than that, there really weren’t any profound changes.

It really didn’t bring anything major to the table. The how and why of the villain really wasn’t explained and the evil step mother was played as just that, a straight villain. The movie had a real opportunity here to explain the Lady Tremane better, especially when Cinderella outright asked her, but that fell flat on it’s face.

The other thing that did kind of bug me is the ‘Love at first sight’ set up. Disney, amid much criticism, has tried to shy away from that type of theme. One has to wonder why so many of their movies that do successfully get away from it fail so badly, yet a movie like this that reinforces it does so well. It almost kind of seems like we as the audience need to be careful what we wish for. Perhaps that fantasy element to story-telling should remain intact? Or perhaps new strides need to be made on the story-telling side of things.
I really don’t know, I’m not a princess story or fairy tale writer, so I’m not qualified to speak to that.

Moving on…

My other criticism is that the step-sisters were extremely under-played. They’re supposed to be over the top and I grant you that they were snobbish and mean, but that was really it. In the original, they were downright abusive, not only of Cinderella, but also of each other to an almost comical point.

Another point that was extremely underplayed in this version compared to the original was the dress destruction. In this one, it was a few tears. In the original… I think the Cinema Snob said it best when he said that it was the closest thing Disney has gotten to a rape scene in its classic films. Now I’m usually against that type of thing in movies… especially kids movies, but in this case, the way Disney did it, yes it was violent, but it gave the movie an edge that made it stand out in the endless flow of animated films.
In this movie… as with so many other things that made the original what it was, was really underplayed.

Compare the two scenes:

vs.

Now ask yourself, which are you more likely to remember?

All right… so with all that said, here is my overall take on the movie…

This movie was a remake, not a re-imagining like with the a fore mentioned Maleficent. A very well-made remake, but a remake none-the-less. It really didn’t bring anything new to the table. There was no twist, no behind the scenes story to explain why certain things happened the way that they did, and no real twist on the original characters.

Other takes on Cinderella like Ever After and (to a lesser extent) Into the Woods did this rather nicely. They added new dynamics to the story and in the case of Ever After, they even had the Queen tell the Brother’s Grimm that they got it wrong.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a good movie and I highly recommend seeing it, the problem is that we’ve already seen this movie. Unfortunately it failed to break out of the shadow of the Disney Classic, which is really too bad given how much effort was clearly put into the film. Again, if you like the story, please DO see this movie. It is a beautiful remake that was surprisingly well done. You just need to curb your expectations in that you’re really not going to be seeing anything new.

Anyway, that’s my take on it. If you don’t agree, no problem. We are all entitled to opinions and I’m perfectly open to someone having a different view from mine.

You know… I’m starting to understand the gripe everyone has with Disney’s… bastardization of children’s literature. Initially, whenever someone griped over the princesses or the cheesy love at first sight stories, I kind of just rolled my eyes. Come on, they were harmless children’s stories, right?

Well…

Yesterday, we put on Mickey and the Beanstalk for Gabe and… well let’s just say it’s a lot different from the version I grew up with.
In Jack and the Beanstalk, the one I remember, Jack was scammed out of his cow and his mother threw the beans out the window after smacking the crap out of him.
The beans grew where they landed and Jack climbed it to find the giant and his wife. The giant’s wife was hospitable, fed Jack and everything.
He repaid the kindness by stealing the harp (which cried out for it’s master) and then murdering the giant.
After of which, he took the giants treasures and forced the harp to play for him and his mother

Having become a fan of classical fantasy and folklore, and reading some of the stories that these movies are based off of… maybe these people have a point? Granted, I’ve never been a huge fan of the feminist argument against the classic princess, but then I look at what other plot points have been altered. In the original stories, there was always a sort of gruesomeness or dark reality to them that made us as children think… or at the very least get freaked out.

In Cinderella, her sisters cut away their heels. In Rapunzel, the Prince had his eyes slashed by thorns (I think). Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother had to be cut out of the stomach of the Wolf… the examples go on.

Kids for years have been handling these stories in their original forms. Why are we suddenly so scared of letting them hear these as they were meant to?

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com
I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.
Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below: